LUCKNOW: Dr Zafarul-Islam Khan, president of All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat (AIMMM), the umbrella body of Indian Muslim organizations, in a press statement issued on Saturday said that Afzal Guru's execution was legally and morally unjustified and hasty. Guru's hanging is part of the political game Congress is playing to outdo VHP/BJP's Hindutva and security planks, he said.

Khan said "Guru did not get a fair trial in the first place. His repeated assertions that he was sent to Delhi from Srinagar by a certain named police officer in Srinagar were never heard or probed. At best, he was a secondary player. He did not take part in the actual attack." The statement was issued in Delhi and circulated by various organisations affiliated to AIMMM across the country including Lucknow.

Khan, in his statement, also said that it has been known to the political class and the media for years that the public opinion in the Kashmir valley is enraged by Guru's trial and the verdict and there is real risk of the revival of militancy as a result of Guru's execution.

"As such, I think it was reckless on the part of the Indian government to have taken this highly risky, hasty and dubious step which is akin to the execution in 1983 of Maqbool Bhat on a crime committed by others thousands of miles away in Britain but the hasty execution eventually led to ignite the militancy in the Kashmir," he said.